Hahahah,

fair point, maybe you could show me a 50 year old rail that is still worthy of being ridden. ;)

Even a 20 year old rail is problematic from what I understand (from a UK perspective).

It's not the tracks itself that need to be maintained first. When they are the issue the easiest fix is to swap the rails.

What need to be done first is the gravel and then also the ties. Expensive are also trackout/switches with motors, and of course the signal boxes. What is now the big deal is adoption to newer technologies like ETCS.

What needs the fastest maintenance nowadays, though, is software :-).